


Pools of Fate

by Vanilla_Owns_Chocolate



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Dissociation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanilla_Owns_Chocolate/pseuds/Vanilla_Owns_Chocolate
Summary: How does Garnet handle being able to see so many futures? Answer: she can't, but nobody has to know that.





	Pools of Fate

Things seemed to go by way too fast for Garnet.

The thing about time, she surmised, was that it zipped by when you didn't want it to. Garnet had been herself for thousands and thousands of years, and she could have sworn that Ruby and Sapphire's first meeting still felt like it was only yesterday. One minute, she was standing in the middle of the dense forest, admiring her puffy blue and red hair, and then she would blink and be back at the temple.

Most of the time, she enjoyed letting her mind wander to other places; places of passionate red heat and calm blue frost, of soft pink flowers and other wonderful colors that were out there somewhere, colors that she couldn't see but were undoubtedly very spectacular to those who could. When she was by herself, she could feel these thoughts and images very vividly, almost as if she were actually in another place, another time.

But then, her train of thought would start to drift. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, it was there; the seemingly endless stream of time, pulling her along in so many spiraling paths that it became overwhelming to her. There were so many outcomes, so many possibilities, and there was always a chance that she could blink again and find herself traveling down an even farther path in the real world, wondering where all the time had gone.

It was dangerous, really, to spend so much time thinking about this sort of thing. Whenever she was alone with nothing to take her mind off of it, she'd find herself getting lost in her future vision without intending to do so. She'd try to force it out of her mind, but it was kind of impossible to do when she used it nearly all the time. Yes, it was helpful, but there was always that looming inevitability in the back of her mind that told her that one day she'd exit the temple and find a much older Steven or a long-reformed Pearl and Amethyst. Or maybe, just maybe, she'd find no Steven at all, but a pair of sad Gems and a grave.

It was silly to imagine it when it was so far in the future, but everything seemed far away to her long before it wound up happening. When Rose was pregnant, Garnet knew she was going to die, but she had the somewhat small comfort of, "Well, at least it won't happen for a whole nine months," until suddenly those nine months were over and she was standing here, in the temple, a fourteen-year-old Steven and an abundance of futures to either look forward to or dread.

Garnet knew, deep down, that nothing was _really_ 100% certain in life. After all, she had been faced with her fair share of surprises numerous times, but those surprises were unfortunately few and far between. Her predictions were almost always correct, even when she managed to get the hang of the odd unexpected situation. There were lots of ways to prevent certain outcomes and influence others, but there were times when it just felt like it was all too _much._ She always had to be on the alert, not just as a seer of the future, but also as the leader of the Crystal Gems.

So, for now, she forced those feelings down, and would continue to force them down until the next big surprise. Then, she was allowed to feel things.

But for the sake of her team, she would never let them know.


End file.
